This week, we spoke with Addie (@atdiy) and Whisker (@whixr), the Toymakers (@Tymkrs). Their latest CypherCon badges included a complete phone system. For more information, check out the user documentation at hackthebadge.com or the related Reddit post. There is a video of Joe Grand’s 2018 CypherCon talk if you’d like to watch him talk about his juvenile delinquency. In our last episode with Addie and Whisker (#205), we talked about the CypherCon 2017 badges and their Tindie store. Tindie module for phone The "Drew" mentioned is Drew Fustini (@pdp7). Though only Whisker supports accosting him to talk about OSH Park board colors.

Finally! An episode with version control! And D&D! Chris Svec (@christophersvec) joins us to discuss why version control is critical to professional software development and what the most important concepts are. T-Shirts are on sale for a limited time: US distributor and EU distributor. You can read more from Chris on the Embedded Blog. He writes the ESE101 column (new posts soon!). If you are new to version control or learning git, Atlassian has a great set of posts and tutorialsfrom high level “what is version control?” to helping you figure out good usage models (Svec mentioned gitflow). Atlassian has an interactive tutorial that lets you try out the repository commands (or try the Github interactive tutorials). Of course, there is a good O’Reilly book about git. If you are using SVN (aka Subversion), the Red Bean book from O’Reilly is a good resource. (Elecia's shirt said You Obviously Like Owls from topatoco.com.)  

Claire Rowland (@clurr) joined to discuss creating good user experiences for the Internet of Things. Claire is the lead author of Designing Connected Products: UX for the Consumer Internet of Things. You can find more about her on clairerowland.com, from her talks (including Interusability: UX for Connected Products), her book's website, and her guest appearance on the IoT Podcast (episode 21). Her new report about user experience and the IoT will be on Iotuk.org.uk in June of 2018. Elecia was also on the IoT Podcast: episode 158. It was @SwiftOnSecurity who posted the tweet about experts and their typical response.

Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) answer listener emails. We did a show with Dennis Jackson about transitioning from software to embedded: 211: 4 Weeks, 3 Days Chibios RTOS: MyNewt or Zephyr may be more worth your time. Software tool: Beyond Compare for excellent differencing, including folder level Other people answer STEAM vs STEM (in about the same way we did). C++ standards for safety: NASA, ESA, JSF-AV rules, and Jason Turner’s C++ best practices. Elecia played with Javascript to make a watchface for her Fitbit Versa Chris got a Blackaddr Guitar Teensy Shield which uses the Teensy Audio Library to do amazing guitar effects via code. Elecia’s Twitter bot is @pajamaswithfeet (Tracery code on cheapbotsdonequick.com) Making Embedded Systems book Embedded Patreon

Jason Turner (@lefticus) of the CPPCast (@cppcast) spoke with us about modern C++ in embedded systems. Jason’s articles can be found on EmptyCrate.com. You can also contact him there and find out more about his training sessions. Jason’s video channel is on C++ Weekly and includes an ARM emulator written in C++, running on Compiler Explorer. Jason often uses Compiler Explorerby Matt Godbolt (Embedded #190: Trust Me, I’m Right). Jason’s C++ Best Practices Guide on Github. Listen to CPPCast at cppcast.comor on your favorite podcast app. CPPCon 2016 keynote Rich Code for Tiny Computers, where Jason writes a Commodore 64 game in C++. Jason recommended looking at Odin Holmes’ twitter (@odinthenerd) as well as Odin’s talks from CPPCon (such as his 2017 talk about agent based class design). Odin runs an embedded C++ conference in Germany called Embo++. Also look into Jens Weller’s Meeting C++conference. During the show, Elecia was looking at cppreference.com. She would also like to apologize to Bjarne Stroustrup. Embedded Patreon

Alvaro Prieto (@alvaroprieto) spoke with us about laser turrets, tearing down quadcopters, flux capacitors, the moon, and culture at work. Alvaro's blog Alvaro's github repositories including Proto-X quadcopter information, Silta bus monitoring, and Skype video message exporter for OSX. One of the inspirations for taking apart the Proto-X was watching Micah talk about her Coastermelt project. We talked to her about it on episode 101: Taking Apart the Toaster. One of his reasons for going to Planet Labs was knowing Shaun Meehan, check out his Amp Hour interview. Daemon by Daniel Suarez Video of Supercon talk on laser shooting robots Podcast Award nominations open in early 2016 Getting a picture of the moon in stereo requires some planning especially in 1949 when Alvaro's great-grandfather took these. On the slide are two images of the moon that combine to create a nicely stereo image.

We spoke with Dr. Bennie Lewis (@_benjoe02) about machine learning and robotics. Bennie is a Senior Research Scientist at Lockheed Martin, content creator, and Twitch streamer (benjoe02) NVIDIA Jetson platformand Cuda for deep learning LEGO Mindstorms SAMS C++ in One Hour a Dayby Siddhartha Rao

Stephen Kraig (@Macro_Ninjaneer) and Parker Dillmann (@LnghrnEngineer), of Macrofab (@MacroFab) joined us to chat about getting hardware and software to work together. Stephen and Parker are also hosts of the Macrofab podcast. We compared out-the-ordinary podcast guests. For MacroFab episode 112 it was their conversation with a patent lawyer. For Embedded episode 150 it was our conversation with a tax accountant. Schematics for the Apollo Guidance Computer (and their Kicad replica on github).

Kristina Durivage (@gelicia) described her path getting into making and hardware hacking as a complement to her day job working in front-end software. Kristina’s portfolio.gelicia.com includes write-ups on her projects (TweetSkirt, Kitchen Playset Game) as well as links to her talks. Or you can skip to her github.com/gelicia repository. Kristina has a chapter in the 10 LED Projects for Geeks book coming out from NoStarch Press. Thank you to Patreon Embedded supporters for Kristina’s mic! Elecia and Kristina both recommend the classic Robert Aspirin Myth Adventure books!

We spoke with Michael Barr (@embeddedbarr) about the Barr Group embedded systems survey. You can download the 2018 survey at the Barr Group survey page. The Barr Group Embedded C Coding Standardis also free to download (with registration). You can buy a paper copy on Amazon. Programming Embedded Systems in C and C++ 1st Editionby Michael Barr, also available for free in HTML on the Barr Group site. The second edition is Programming Embedded Systems: With C and GNU Development Tools, 2nd Editionby Michael Barr and Anthony Massa. The second book was Embedded Systems Dictionaryby Jack Ganssle and Michael Barr Elecia’s book is Making Embedded Systems: Design Patterns for Great Software.